Brand: nervous phony

Yeah, he's a bright fellow, but Russell Brand is a blithering, blurting idiot who seems constitutionally incapable of having a conversation. His lefty-anarchist talking points are well and good as far it goes, but they are old ideas, old rhetoric, old insights. He has all the wretched traits of someone who regards them-self as smarter than his or her fellows because they have a library card, by which I mean that Brand is an autodidact who cannot help but talk over those he's in nominal conversations with, and that he cannot resist fatal doses of sarcasm against who ever is hosting the show he's been invited on. Sarcasm is a piss-poor substitute for wit, and it's a defensive posture. It is meant to keep others at bay so closer scrutiny of provocative statements is well-nigh impossible. It sends people away rather than invite them to interrogate the notions with piercing questions and counter-assertions. It's the mark of a nervous phony.

He reminds of the kind of the sort who reads Ayn Rand at 17 and is convinced that they are a genius being oppressed by collectivists and freeloaders; the sad part is that they never grow out of it. Brand, in his variation of bad manners, is similar because he discovered Marx, Chomsky and all manner of post-Soviet leftism and used the abstractions to inflate a personality that has the charm of a box of rusty zippers. It's not that I'm not sympathetic to much of what Brand is talking about. I and everyone else, though, have a choice as to who we listen to about issues and solutions for intractable problems.

For the good of the causes he says he supports, Brand is their worst enemy, a self-regarding brat with a vocabulary who cannot or will not get over himself long enough to test the merits of his notions in honest exchanges. His recitations of much smarter left-wing theorists, be they Guy DeBord, Marcuse or Foucault, the rich litany of social contradictions and self-confliction does not really register more than the accelerated data spew an eidetic savant would relentlessly hose you down with; fidgety as he is, raggedy as he looks, Brand is the poster boy of the man who forgot to refill his prescriptions. He is manic, perhaps he should be under professional care. The tragedy is that sooner or later his audience will find a new shiny object to distract themselves with and Russell Brand will be consigned to the Hollywood Squares ghetto of used up celebrities. But even that doesn't exist as an option anymore. As more people die of disease, gunshot wounds , unnatural disasters and the like, this braying donkey will sicken the audience that deigned to lend him an ear and both eyes.

Snyder and Rand

I am a  fan of filmmaker Zack Snyder 's movies. Also, I hold Ayn Rand in low regard.  Yes, those two statements have a relationship, if only for the purposes of this minor rant. His reported intention to do a new film version of that miserable human's novel The Fountainhead ways heavy on my soul and forces me to admit that for all his graces as a visual stylist who is able to bring the baroque dynamics of the graphic novel to the big screen as very few can, the man, it seems, find's Rand's fascination with rabid individualism irresistible. My background was in liberal arts, with a heavy concentration in Literature and intellectual history; Rand, however compelling her notions can be too many, is a wooden, cliché-prone writer, and her worship of genius and the provision, outlined by Howard Roark in the trial scene of the novel and film, is that the work of geniuses must never be interfered nor tampered with by the masses. This sets up the rationale that billionaires and corporate heads are geniuses by definition, and nothing they are responsible for in their accumulation of capital can be tampered with, restricted, regulated, or otherwise be subject to the scrutiny of the public interest. It's a slippery slope--the libertarian quest for absolute liberty meets an anti-democratic, totalitarian impulse in a dark, intellectual back alley. Rand's apparently admires these men to the extent that she condones sexual assault of powerful men of "genius", as in Roark's taking of Dagny against her protests, and terrorist destruction, as in Roark's destruction of the Public Housing projects when he discovered officials altered his designs against his wishes. 

Synder's admiration for the novel is problematic; his Superman was a hero struggling to find himself as he tried to Do the Right thing expected of him; despite the travails of what the public through at him, he found a way to act in good faith, to serve the public good in selfless fashion. Howard Roark is a self-involved egotist willing to destroy projects dedicated to helping the needy if his personal code were transgressed upon. That defines not a hero, but a sociopath, a menace to civilians and democratic social order. It's my hope, down the line, that a director with Snyder's huge gifts as a film artist finds a better subject for a film.

There's not really much Snyder can do to interpret Fountainhead; it's meaning and intent are pretty much cemented in place ; also, it's highly unlikely the estate of Ayn Rand would allow any film director, no matter how famous, to deviate from the propaganda points that the novel’s mainstay and create something legitimately artful. In Watchman, he took Moore's ideas that are those who exceed societal norms and concluded, I think, that the consequences of that were dire that society paid for as a whole. Both BvS and MoS were matters of some going from doing things his way, by his own counsel, and learning to serve a greater good where the results were tangibly good for the lives of others. By the time JL came out, we get the idea of rugged individualists and egocentric recluses learning to be part of something greater than themselves, very un-Randian.

King Vidor did a brilliantly over the top version of The Fountainhead in 1949 starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal, based on Rand's original screenplay. Though I hate Rand's ideas and consider her one of the worst things to happen to American culture in the 20th century, the film is a guilty pleasure, full of phallic symbolism and visual equations that sex is power, and that power belongs to powerful men. She was phallocentric and constructed the pathetic fallacy with obvious, groan-worthy metaphors for her beliefs--architect=MALE, architecture/buildings= ERECTIONS. Her imagination was nearly pornographic. Her story ideas or cardboard intellectualizing wouldn't survive Snyder's extravagance and spectacle, and Snyder would never be taken seriously again by any of his fans who regard him as subtler than the critical culture currently thinks. Snyder is brilliant, but Ayn Rand is awful, not a friend of democracy who worships powerful men. She is an awful prose writer, a lead-footed novelist, and a sorry philosopher who offers a thin intellectual veneer to being mean, callous and ruthless in the pursuit of your own ends. Her quest for liberty winds up with autocratic or fascistic leaders. I would have thought Snyder had a more sophisticated view of all this than this cute – rate rendition of Nietzsche’s most misrepresented ideas.

A man without limits is not without wanting

Vidal is alternately over rated and under rated as a novelist, but it is his genius as an essayist that will cement his reputation in place. Literature, politics, films, theater, social custom--his was the work of the true public intellectual, considering trends, ideas , schemes that effect the social body.It's easy to think Vidal likes a certain amount of humanity in his scouring of the culture , but I think that might be one of his blessings. 

He does not, over all, pad his essays about literature, film or other cultural phenomenon with an expected Liberal Arts tic of insisting that what he's inspecting is an advancement . Instead of rose colored glasses, he prefers coated in Crisco. On politics I think he is rather bloodless and elevated in his No pronouncements--at some point it seems he felt he had to out do WF Buckley for patrician airs, but from the Left. 

It's essays on literature I find rewarding over and over and over again as I go to him for judgments from a man who is well read and who regards the writing of fiction to be something of a sacred trust , owing to art but finally meant to present readerships with complicated tales of complicated, comic, tragic characters in hairy times , folks whose tales help readerships experience something new and provoke to think outside their comfort zones. He was cranky in this regard, and its here I find a fiery advocate for the well written novel.

His prose style is perfect for his essays, especially his literary cave diving, but his fiction wordage is High Competence . Not horrible, not awkward, occasionally evocative, but rather flat so far as euphony is concerned. He is a good novelist, not a great one, a professional writer who, though not a genius, has written some masterpieces . I would say Burr, 1876 and Lincoln are in that arena. He wrote things, many things, that are just exercises, novels he wrote as though to win a bet. I have always found his satire to be mean, smug and fatally unfunny.

The train keeps a rolling

Sad, but remember that the talented and insightful Anthony Bourdain was a bad heroin addict before he got clean and began to write books. He continued to drink, alcoholically according to some who knew him, which makes sense. If one is addicted to one drug, they are addicted to them all, and abstinence and a good support system are the best ways to learn to live a fulfilling life without depressives of any kind. I suspect the alcohol-fueled his depression. I have, incidentally, nearly 31 years of sobriety and "clean time" and have yet to see a junkie who kicked dope and then go on to drink successfully. There were two results of those who drank after quitting dope. They either sobered up entirely or died too soon. I feel the loss --he was a fine man. But I suspect his lot would have been better had he not continued to drink so copiously.
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The Doors were a mixed bag for me; the first two albums are among the most important rock albums of all time, with the remainder alternating between the proverbial poles of brilliance and balderdash. As a band, they were simply sublime and unique, with the odd combination of blues, flamenco, classical, jazz, Artaud, and epic theater being crafted in their hands to create a sound and feel that was singular and instantly identifiable. As a vocalist, Jim Morrison was often as evocative as the greatest fans proclaim, and it fit the half-awake twilight that seemed to be his constant state of consciousness. As a poet, though, I thought he was simply awful, fragmented, crypto-mystic surrealism that, save for some striking and memorable lines, collapsed from its flimsy elisions and obtuse vagaries. In his posthumous collections, the pieces read too often, like the notebook jottings of an introspective 17-year-old. I say that as an introspective 17 year and is now an introspective 65-year-old. Morrison might have become the poet he wanted to be had he written, edited, and finesse his work as he desired when he left for Paris. I will say, though, that being the vocalist in the Doors allowed him to go through his writings, his poems and select many of the stronger passages for the band's more theatrical songs. Ironically, the Doors seemed to be an institutional editor for Morrison's words, forcing the bard to decide which of his jottings was actually the most powerful, concise, emphatic. In all, a fine and well-researched piece, Jon, another fine piece of historical journalism.

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The Yardbirds and Aerosmith effectively took this song behind the garage and reupholstered it until it was nothing but a bulldozing pain to rape mentality. Tiny Bradshaw's original reminds us of something more sensual, fun, swinging because we have an analogy of dance partners working here, not combatants.

two paragraps

1.The American was the first Henry James novel I read, and it's a great one, about a nouveau riche American named Christopher Newman who, on his first visit to Europe, rather naively seeks respite from the vulgarities of his native country, only to learn of the great and gross things about Europe in the course of his search. One of the first writers to deal with the American experience in the Old World, and a relevant one it remains. And I love the slippery syntax of James' prose. American business , arrogant and smug in its focus on pragmatic efficiency, meets the Old World, which hangs on to tradition , custom and class in the face of rapidly encroaching Internationalist modernism.  

    

2. I've been harsh on Ezra Pound's poetry since my first full exposure to his work in college; as a lyricist I thought he was grandiose without rhythm, diffuse without those pockets of lyric genius that make critical interpretation worth the effort, prolix without purpose. There was more poetry in his critical rants , really, and he was a good scout for poets far superior to himself. Lately, I had the idea that maybe I would revisit him by picking up the Selected Poems of Ezra Pound, the same text I used in college , and see if being forty years older has allowed me to catch up with this man's fabled genius. Two days later, the ground beneath Pound's reputation remains charred and lifeless. This crypto- fascist was as much as a poet as Trump is a brilliant business man. What those two share is one tangible skill, that of self promotion and making millions your greatness is genuine. And both, it seems, harbor an affection for political strong men.

3 HASTY PARAGRAPHS ABOUT THE WIRE AND THE SOPRANOS

Not a slam dunk choice, deciding which was he better crime series, The Wire or The Sopranos. Some hasty reflection and equivocation, of a sort, are called for..Both are crime dramas, but both are entirely different creatures and sensibilities. The Wire was complex and multi-level on the society tiers it included, like a Dickens novel. And the show was contiguous in its complicated story line; it was more in league with the tradition of the police procedural , where the actual police work was always in the forefront. Characters all had their complexities and distinct personalities, of course, which made for compelling dramatic conflict, but no situation in any of the social levels--the street, the cops, the upper class, the press, the politicians--was unrelated to the criminal activity being committed and being investigated.The Wire was a true, crime drama. 

The genius of The Sopranos was that they seemed an inspired parody of the kinds of families you find on the vintage family saga dramas on broadcast tv, but in this case it was crime families instead of oil barons. Toss in the notion that a crime boss has a therapist and we have a show whose creators take license to introduce sudden shifts in moods, style, point of view, ranging from surreal and comic, seen in their frequent use of dream sequences, to comedic, to tragic and genuinely moving, those moments when our sympathies are truly with Tony Soprano. Since the show dealt so amazingly well with the issue of loyalty to family, both real and crime, and adherence to an inverted kind of tradition and notions of the right thing to do, I would also make a tenuous connection to King Lear, with Tony as the addled , ego-driven monarch whose demands for full obedience to his skittishly arrived at decisions creates the seeds of his eventual demise,

As mentioned, the show creators also liked abrupt changes in tone, and were mindful to remind us, just when we begin to feel that Tony or any of his colleagues are redeemable and wholly sympathetic, we witness again that these people are monsters, cruel, venal, and emotionally distanced  from the harm they cause others.For complexity of story line and epic scale of narrative accomplishment, I will take The Wire. The Sopranos, though, has its own kind of genius that no other show has 

Norman Mailer's 'The Deer Park,' Discussed by David Thomson | The New Republic

Norman Mailer's 'The Deer Park,' Discussed by David Thomson | The New Republic:

The authors argues that The Deer Park was one of the best novels ever written about Hollywood. I find it less so, and lesser Mailer at that, written in a period where the divisions of what Mailer wanted to do as fiction writer hadn't yet found a workable style. At times it is succinct to the point of resembling stammering, other times the passages meant to evoke nuance, speculation, self reflection in the poetry of longer sentences are overworked, over rehearsed, bordering on purple prose. And the character names were far too ridiculous for me to not laugh when the psychologies Mailer was trying to reveal and present in conflict demanded monikers that were less distracting. Mailer was still working toward his original style. David Thomason, though, makes an intriguing case for the novel and finds that it resonates into the new century.